President Trump has been asking pointed questions about whether longtime adviser Corey Lewandowski personally profited from a $220 million federal advertising campaign that featured now-ousted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, according to three people familiar with his conversations.
The president, according to a senior White House official, has raised the subject repeatedly.
"He's mentioned the ads several times."
The questioning comes on the heels of Noem's removal from DHS and her reassignment to a special envoy role within the newly formed "Shield of the Americas." That decision followed a pair of contentious Capitol Hill hearings last week that put the ad campaign, and the contracting apparatus behind it, squarely in the spotlight.
Trump told NBC News he "wasn't thrilled" about Noem's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee and said he "didn't know anything about it." The ads. The contracts. The $220 million price tag.
Lewandowski, who has served as a special government employee at DHS for more than a year and functioned as a de facto chief of staff to Noem, categorically denied receiving any money from DHS contracts, NBC News reported. Asked how much he made, he answered plainly.
"Zero, not one penny."
He told NBC News in a Monday interview that Trump had not raised the ads or contracts with him directly, despite speaking with the president on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of the week before Noem was fired. That's three conversations in three days with no mention of a $220 million campaign that the president was simultaneously grilling other aides about.
Lewandowski framed the situation as a matter of personal trust built over more than a decade.
"Since I've known the guy for 11 years, I think it's fair to say if he had a concern about something I was doing, he would raise it."
Maybe. But a second senior White House official offered a blunter read of the situation, telling reporters that "Corey made out on that one."
Two Democratic senators, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Peter Welch of Vermont, have launched an investigation into three businesses that won DHS contracts to produce the ads:
The Strategy Group is run by Ben Yoho, described as the husband of former DHS spokeswoman Tricia McGlaughlin. The senators cited news reports, including a November ProPublica story, detailing ties between the ad contracts and firms connected to Noem's orbit. Their letters asked the businesses to provide documentation of their DHS agreements, which companies they subcontracted, and whether any of them had deals in place with Lewandowski.
No-bid contracts totaling $220 million would raise eyebrows in any administration. In one that has built its mandate on eliminating government waste and draining the bureaucratic swamp, they raise something closer to alarm bells.
Noem's tenure at DHS was dogged by more than just the ad controversy. She had to fend off reports about her acquisition of a luxury jet, tensions with agencies within her own department, and broader contracting problems. During her Senate Judiciary Committee testimony, she told lawmakers that Trump had signed off on the expensive ad campaign. That claim did not help her cause with a president who said he "didn't know anything about it."
Meanwhile, DHS officials and lobbyists have said Lewandowski wielded outsized influence in the awarding of federal contracts at the department, though specifics remain thin. What isn't thin is the trail of dysfunction. In February, Trump switched up the team overseeing DHS's Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis after federal agents shot and killed two American citizens.
The president has consistently praised Noem for helping cut off the southern border with Mexico. But praise for results doesn't grant immunity from accountability for spending. Conservatives who cheered the administration's border enforcement posture have every reason to demand that the money behind it was spent honestly.
Lewandowski, who was the first manager on Trump's original presidential campaign and later had a dust-up with 2024 campaign manager Susie Wiles (now the White House chief of staff), says it is his own decision whether he leaves DHS when Noem departs. He pointed to March 31 as a potential exit date but said he has not made up his mind.
That ambiguity is telling. A man with nothing to hide and no political exposure would have a clear answer. Instead, Lewandowski is hedging on his own future while insisting the president harbors no concerns about his past conduct.
Trump's instinct here is the right one. When $220 million in taxpayer money flows through no-bid contracts to firms connected to political allies, the person at the top should be asking hard questions. The fact that he's asking them about someone in his own orbit, rather than waiting for Democrats to build the narrative, is exactly the kind of accountability that draining the swamp requires.
The answers just need to arrive before March 31.
